Tuning Up for the Road

By

Rob Hochschild

May 29, 2003

Horatio Nelson Jackson drives the "Vermont" through sage during his cross-country drive in 1903.

Photo from University of Vermont, Special Collections

The right music is critical for the success of any road trip. Whether you're driving on a sunny afternoon with all the windows rolled down or speeding through darkness in the middle of the night, there's always some song that will help make your trip go smoother. This year is the centennial of the first cross-country automobile trip in the U.S., and to help mark the occasion, Berklee has released a list of the 50 all-time top driving songs.

Berklee associate professor of songwriting Jon Aldrich created the list, which spans four decades of pop music, from Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" (1955) to Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac" (1984). The release of the list of driving songs comes just months before the debut of Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip, a new film by Ken Burns that recreates Horatio Nelson Jackson's cross-country drive of 1903. PBS will broadcast the film this fall.

Take a cruise through Aldrich's top fifty driving songs below (the top ten, in no particular order, are in italics):